Sgt. Joe Aguilar and Officer Barry Blackburn return a Chevy Silverado pickup truck to a Manteca resident who had it stolen from in front of his home at 10:30 a.m. Thursday.

GLENN KAHL/The Bulletin

A stolen 2006 Silverado pickup truck was recovered by Manteca Police 10 minutes after it was stolen from in front of a home in the 300 block of Roosevelt Avenue at about 10:30 a.m. Thursday.

Officers Dan Chestnut and Dan Skrimager found the vehicle parked and still running in the 300 block of North Lincoln Avenue outside the fence of the Lindbergh School campus parking lot. A third officer was sent to pick up the owner of the vehicle and transport him some five blocks to reclaim his undamaged truck. He said he had yelled at the driver nearly half a block away when he saw he had taken his vehicle.

Chestnut is the Manteca officer who has been lauded in past years for his many arrests of drunk drivers in the community. He was working as a field training officer for a new officer in his final session of on the street observation training. The truck bed contained swimming pool chemicals.

There were 215 vehicles stolen in Manteca during the first eight months of this year. That’s 16.67 percent less than for the same January to August period in 2012 when 258 vehicles were stolen.

Vehicle thefts peaked at 798 in Manteca during 2004. From that point more aggressive policing efforts and targeting habitual criminals pushed the auto theft rate downward. It hasn’t topped 450 since 2008

At the peak of the auto theft frenzy in Manteca, about 25 percent of all cars taken were either left with keys in the ignition or with engines running and unattended. It wasn’t unusual in 2004 for at least once a month for police to get a report of a car being stolen by someone who started it up to warm the engine and then went inside for a cup of coffee. What makes it ironic is post 1990 vehicle engineering plus Manteca’s mild weather makes warming up a vehicle superfluous.

At least one out of every five vehicles taken today still have their keys left in the ignition or are even left unattended with the engine running.